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Infowars
Alex Jones is an American far-right radio show host, filmmaker, writer, and conspiracy theorist. He hosts The Alex Jones Show from Austin, Texas, which airs on the Genesis Communications Network and shortwave radio station WWCR across the United States and online. His website, Infowars, has been labeled as a fake news website. Jones has been the center of many controversies, including his statements in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, about it being staged, adding support to Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting conspiracy theories, and as an argument against gun control. He has accused the US government of being involved in the Oklahoma City bombing, the September 11 attack and the filming of fake moon landings to hide NASA's secret technology. He says that government and big business have colluded to create a New World Order through "manufactured economic crises, sophisticated tech and... above all... job terror attacks that fuel exploitable hysteria." Jones has described himself as a libertarian and paleoconservative, and has been described by others as conservative, right-wing, alt-right, and a pro-Russia propagandist. New York magazine described Jones as "America's leading conspiracy theorist," and the Southern Poverty Law Center describes him as "the most prolific conspiracy theorist in contemporary America." When asked about these labels, Jones said that he is "proud to be listed as a thought criminal against Big Brother." Alex Jones Jones began his career in Austin with a live, call-in format public-access cable television program. In 1996, Jones switched format to radio, hosting a show named The Final Edition on KJFK. Ron Paul was running for Congress and was a guest on his show several times. In his early shows, Jones frequently talked about his belief that the United States government was behind the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, using the incident to put down a growing "states' rights movement." In 1998, he released his first film, America Destroyed By Design. In 1998, Jones organized a successful effort to build a new Branch Davidian church, as a memorial to those who died during the 1993 fire that ended the government's siege of the original Branch Davidian complex near Waco, Texas. He often featured the project on his public-access television program and claimed that David Koresh and his followers were peaceful people who were murdered by Attorney General Janet Reno and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms during the siege. In 1999, he tied with Shannon Burke for that year's "Best Austin Talk Radio Host" poll, as voted by the Austin Chronicle readers. Later that year, he was fired from KJFK for refusing to broaden his topics. His views were making the show hard to sell to advertisers, according to the station's operations manager. Jones stated, "It was purely political, and it came down from on high... I was told 11 weeks ago to lay off Clinton, to lay off all these politicians, to not talk about rebuilding the church, to stop bashing the Marines, A to Z." He began spreading his show by internet connection from his home. In early 2000, Jones was one of seven Republican candidates for state representative in Texas House District 48, an open swing district based in Austin, Texas. Jones stated that he was running "to be a watchdog on the inside" but withdrew from the race after a couple of weeks. In July, a group of Austin Community Access Center (ACAC) programmers claimed that Jones used legal proceedings and ACAC policy to intimidate them or get their shows thrown off the air. In 2001, his show was syndicated on approximately 100 stations. After the 9/11 attack, Jones began to speak of a conspiracy by the Bush administration as being behind the attack, which caused a number of the stations that had previously carried him to drop his program, according to Will Bunch. On June 8, 2006, while on his way to cover a meeting of the Bilderberg Group in Ottawa, Jones was stopped and detained at the Ottawa airport by Canadian authorities who confiscated his passport, camera equipment, and most of his belongings. He was later allowed to enter Canada lawfully. Jones said about the reason for his immigration hold, "I want to say, on the record, it takes two to tango. I could have handled it better." On September 8, 2007, he was arrested while protesting at 6th Avenue and 48th Street in New York City. He was charged with operating a megaphone without a permit. Two others were also cited for disorderly conduct when his group crashed a live television show featuring Geraldo Rivera. In an article, one of Jones' fellow protesters said, "It was... guerrilla information warfare." On July 6, 2017, alongside Paul Joseph Watson, Jones began hosting a contest to create the best CNN "meme," in which the winner would receive $20,000. The contest was created in response to CNN releasing an article regarding a controversial Reddit user. Infowars The Alex Jones Show is broadcast nationally by the Genesis Communications Network to more than 90 AM and FM radio stations in the United States, including WWCR, a shortwave radio station. The Sunday show also airs on KLBJ. In 2010, the show attracted around two million listeners each week. According to journalist Will Bunch, a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, the show has a demographic heavier in younger viewers than other conservative pundits due to Jones' "highly conspiratorial tone... web-oriented approach." Bunch has also stated that Jones "feeds on the deepest paranoia." According to Alexander Zaitchik of Rolling Stone magazine, in 2011 he had a larger online audience than Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh combined. Jones is the operator of the websites Infowars and Prison Planet. His website, Infowars, has been labeled by press outlets as a fake news website. The Infowars editor is Paul Joseph Watson, who also occasionally guest hosts or co-hosts Jones' radio program. Mainstream sources have described Jones as a conservative, a conspiracy theorist and an outlet for pro-Russia propaganda. Jones has described himself as a libertarian and a paleoconservative. Following the 2016 Republican National Convention, Jones and Roger Stone began plotting the removal of Ted Cruz from his Senate seat in 2018 through potential challengers Katrina Pierson and Dan Patrick. Jones supports Donald Trump and has consistently denounced Hillary Clinton. Jones said that Trump called him on the day after the election to thank him for his help in the campaign. Jones has been the center of many controversies, such as the one surrounding his actions and statements about gun control and the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. He has accused the United States government of being involved in the Oklahoma City bombing and the September 11 attacks. Jones was in a "media crossfire" in 2011, which included criticism by Rush Limbaugh, when the news spread that Jared Lee Loughner, the perpetrator of the 2011 Tucson shooting, had been "a fan" of the 9/11 conspiracy film Loose Change of which Jones had been an executive producer. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton criticized Donald Trump for his ties to Alex Jones. In 2017 he was criticized for claiming that the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack was a hoax. Controversies On August 4, 2008, appearing on the syndicated radio show of Alex Jones - who claims to be "considered by many to be the grandfather" of what has come to be known as the 9/11 truth movement - Jerome Corsi baselessly claimed that as a child, "Obama got Islamic instruction, and it wasn't mainstream Islamic instruction." Jones asserted that "we should not have anybody as president who - both their parents aren't Americans," saying "this allows infiltration," later saying of Obama, "He is a ringer, folks. He's meant to take a dive for John McCain. So this is nonpartisan. The facts are in. He will be destroyed in this election." On November 5, 2008, libertarian Representative Ron Paul gave an interview to radio host Alex Jones in which he accused President-elect Barack Obama of working to undermine the US government in favor of a "new world order," a UN-led "one-world government." Paul said that he believes the incoming Obama administration was orchestrating some sort of "international crisis" that would give Obama the chance to begin implementing his sinister plan. "I think it's going to be an announcement of a new monetary order, and they'll probably make it sound very limited, they're not going to say this is world government, even though it is if you control the world's money and you control the military, which they do indirectly... A world central bank, worldwide regulation and world control of the whole system, of all the commodities and all the natural resources, what else can you call it other than world government?... Obama wouldn't be there if he didn't toe the line... This could be the beginning of the end of what's left of our national sovereignty." Paul said that many non-US press outlets were already hailing Obama as "the world's leader." On March 18, 2009, Fox News senior judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano hosted radio host Alex Jones on the online program Freedom Watch. Jones said that he had long pointed out "how hundreds of mainstream news articles a week are saying there is a new world order, a global government. It will be run by the very banks that are collapsing society by design, and we will pay carbon taxes to them... The good news is, I've never seen an awakening this big. And I'm seeing, you know, people like Glenn Beck talk about the new world order on Fox. I'm seeing you talk about it for years before him. We're seeing host Lou Dobbs talk about it. We're seeing, you know, mainline talk show hosts - host Rush Limbaugh is even talking about global government now. host Michael Savage is talking about how he thinks, you know, Obama may stage crises to bring in martial law." Jones was echoing claims made in the '90s and later by extremist militia groups, which warned that the US government intended to implement a "new world order" of a one-world government that would result in the confiscation of Americans' guns, and a general replacement of democracy for tyranny, and that were echoed by Fox News pundits such as Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, and others. On July 24, 2009, Representative Louis Gohmert laid out a skein of theories on radical radio host Alex Jones' broadcast. During his interview with Jones, Gohmert accused the Obama administration and congressional Democrats of trying to implement socialism and kill senior citizens; Jones and Gohmert compared Obama to a number of foreign despots. Gohmert told Jones and his listeners, "We've been battling this socialist health care, the nationalization of health care, that is going to absolutely kill senior citizens. They'll put them on lists and force them to die early because they won't get the treatment as early as they need... I would rather stop this socialization of health care because once the government pays for your health care, they have every right to tell you what you eat, what you drink, how you exercise, where you live... But if we're going to pay million... like we voted last Friday to put condoms on wild horses, and I know it just says an un-permanent enhanced contraception whatever the heck that is. I guess it follows... they'll eventually get around to doing it to us." Gohmert was echoing claims by Republican lawmakers and industry lobbyists that the Democrats' health care reform proposal would kill senior citizens. Jones upped the ante by accusing the White House science tsar of planning to "put... stuff in the water to sterilize us," and then went on to accuse the White House of, among other things, implementing a "eugenics control grid over us" and implementing "youth brigades, national service compulsory in a group outside the military under the Democratic Party control in the city year in the red and black uniforms." Gohmert agreed with Jones, and said these kinds of policies were "done in the 1930s," a plain reference to Nazi Germany, "and it's not the only place has been done... It has been done throughout history." Jones said, "Mao did it," referring to communist China's Mao Zedong. Gohmert agreed, "Well, that's exactly what I was thinking of. This is the kind of thing we got to stop. We got to get back to the roots, the basics." Gohmert praised Jones for his rhetoric and accusations. "That shows how on top of things you are, Alex." For his part, Jones effusively thanked Gohmert and reminded him that "you're there fighting and we're supporting you." Progressive MSNBC host Rachel Maddow said of Gohmert and Jones, "You know, the Democrats may be fighting it out about whether they're going to be beholden to the insurance companies and whether there's going to be a public option in health care reform. But when it comes to the Republicans, this is the kind of thing they are bringing to the table: Hitler, Mao, and secret plots to kill old people." In early 2015, Jones complained that the efforts to include women in the military are a form of "social engineering" designed to destabilize the military and the American family. He added, "...Can you imagine being in combat with a bunch of women? I mean, can you imagine that? I mean, do you know how much women fight with each other?" In February of 2015, Jones defended friend Senator Rand Paul from press reports by lashing out at CNBC anchor Kelly Evans, who challenged the senator during an interview. Jones called Evans a "whore" and "pimp" for "signing on to a system of murder, you little piece of trash, tramp, filth, scum woman!" During an August 2015 program, Jones repeatedly called Clinton "a witch" and then asked, "Hey Hillary, you got bodyguards. Are their guns bad too? Why can't I have a gun to protect myself, you bitch?" Alex Jones claims Moon landing conspiracy theories The United States' Apollo 11 was the first manned mission to land on the moon, on July 20, 1969. There have been six manned US landings - between 1969 and 1972 - and numerous unmanned landings, with no soft landings happening from August 22, 1976 until December 14, 2013. According to the Daily Beast, "Alex Jones does not deny the entire event of the 11 moon landing altogether, but he does not believe the version of the moon landing shown to the public actually happened." On his radio program, he told his listeners, "The government lies out of hand. You say, 'well then, why do you believe in the moon landing?' Because I have sources inside NASA - they put on some fake stuff for you - see, there was a lie. It's not just 'did we go' or 'didn't we go.' You were shown... stuff because you're not supposed to see what they really got. You're not supposed to know the thousands of astronauts that have died. Oh, yeah... This is the kind of stuff that will get you killed. I shouldn't even get into things I know, because I don't have the absolute proof in front of me - I just have sources and evidence that backs it up, but I'm digressing." Oklahoma City bombing conspiracy theories At 8:35 a.m. on April 19, 1995, a truck bomb destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people in America's worst domestic terrorist attack. Timothy McVeigh, later convicted in the bombing, had ideological roots both in the Patriot world and among neo-Nazis like William Pierce, whose novel, The Turner Diaries, served as a blueprint for the attack. According to Rolling Stone, "When the federal building in Oklahoma City was bombed in 1995, Jones began accusing the government of being involved in the attack... His mailbox began to overflow with manila envelopes from fans who offered up more pieces... RAND reports, declassified intelligence, yellowed press clippings. Within months, Jones landed his own show on KJFK, a local station, and became a folk hero in Austin..." Bohemian Grove The Bohemian Grove is a 2,700-acre campground located in Monte Rio, California, belonging to a private San Francisco-based men's art club known as the Bohemian Club. In mid-July each year, the Bohemian Grove hosts a two-week, three-weekend encampment of some of the most prominent men in the world. The Cremation of Care is an annual theatrical production written, produced and performed by and for members of the Bohemian Club, and staged at the Bohemian Grove at a small artificial lake amid a private old-growth grove of Redwood trees. The dramatic performance is presented on the first night of the annual encampment as an allegorical banishing of worldly cares for the club members, and "to present symbolically the salvation of the trees by the club," but the selective nature of the Bohemians, and the political power of some of its members, has attracted notice from alternative news journalists such as Alex Jones, who characterized the Cremation of Care as a ritualistic shedding of conscience and empathy, and an "abuse of power." The ceremony involves the poling across a lake of a small boat containing an effigy of "Care." Dark, hooded figures receive from the ferryman the effigy which is placed on an altar, and, at the end of the ceremony, set on fire. This "cremation" symbolizes that members are banishing the "dull cares" of conscience. At the time the script was developed, the primary meaning of the word 'care' was synonymous with 'worry,' having more negative connotations than in modern times when it tends to be associated more positively with compassion. The ceremony takes place in front of the Owl Shrine, a 40-foot hollow owl statue made of concrete over steel supports. The moss-and-lichen-covered statue simulates a natural rock formation, yet holds electrical and audio equipment within it. During the ceremony, a recording is used as the voice of the Owl. For many years the recorded voice was club guest Walter Cronkite. Music and pyrotechnics accompany the ritual for dramatic effect. On July 15, 2000, filmmaker Alex Jones and his cameraman, Mike Hanson, infiltrated the Bohemian Grove expecting to uncover the owl statue being worshipped as Moloch, with human sacrifices thrown into its fiery interior. With a hidden camera, Jones and Hanson filmed the Cremation of Care ceremony. The footage was the centerpiece of Jones' documentary Dark Secrets: Inside Bohemian Grove. Jones claimed that the Cremation of Care was an "ancient Canaanite, Luciferian, Babylon mystery religion ceremony." The Grove and Jones' investigation were covered by Jon Ronson in Channel 4's four-part documentary Secret Rulers of the World. Ronson documented his view of the ritual in his book Them: Adventures with Extremists, writing, "My lasting impression was of an all-pervading sense of immaturity: the Elvis impersonators, the pseudo-pagan spooky rituals, the heavy drinking. These people might have reached the apex of their professions but emotionally they seemed trapped in their college years." Outside of the main entrance to the Bohemian Grove, protesters against club members and their guests have held a ceremony called the "Resurrection of Care," intended to symbolically reverse the effects of the Cremation of Care, to prevent the attendees from temporarily abandoning their cares. The counter ceremony was first held in 1980, organized by Mary Moore, a former beauty queen turned left-wing activist. Moore was less concerned about the Cremation of Care ceremony than with the likelihood that club members with corporate interests would gain influence in government. On January 19, 2002, 37-year-old Richard McCaslin was arrested after his nighttime infiltration of the Bohemian Grove, where he set several fires. He was heavily armed and wearing a skull mask and outfit with "Phantom Patriot" written across the chest. 9/11 conspiracy theories On September 11, 2001, four planes were hijacked, two crashed into the World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon, and another crashed into the Pennsylvania countryside. Nearly 3,000 people were killed. The fourth plane hijacked on 9/11, United Airlines Flight 93, crashed in an open field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after the passengers revolted. Out of the four planes hijacked on that day, Flight 93 was the only one not to reach its target. One of the popular conspiracy theories surrounding this event is that Flight 93 was actually shot down by a US fighter jet. David Ray Griffin and Alex Jones say that large parts of the plane including the main body of the engine landed miles away from the main wreckage site, too far away for an ordinary plane crash. Jones says that planes usually leave a small debris field when they crash, and that this is not compatible with reports of wreckage found farther away from the main crash site. One person claimed that the main body of the engine was found miles away from the main wreckage site with damage comparable to that which a heat-seeking missile would do to an airliner. At 5:20 p.m. on September 11, 2001, Building 7 of the World Trade Center complex, a 47-story tower, collapsed. No one was killed. Jones has suggested that the tower's collapse was the result of a controlled demolition. Alex Jones and other personalities hold that 9/11 was initiated by a disparate variety of banking, corporate, globalization, and military interests for the purpose of creating a globalist government. Such new world order conspiracy theories predate 9/11. Alex Jones was fired by 70 radio stations when he began espousing 9/11 conspiracy theories, but by 2011 was espousing these and other conspiracy theories on morning TV shows and was the subject of lengthy magazine profiles. 2012 Aurora shooting On July 20, 2012, a mass shooting occurred inside a Century 16 movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, during a midnight screening of the film The Dark Knight Rises. A gunman, dressed in tactical clothing, set off tear gas grenades and shot into the audience with multiple firearms. Twelve people were killed and 70 others were injured, the largest number of casualties in a shooting in the United States until the Orlando nightclub shooting four years later. This also was the deadliest shooting in Colorado since the Columbine High School massacre in 1999. The sole assailant, James Eagan Holmes, was arrested in his car outside the cinema minutes later. Prior to the shooting, Holmes rigged his apartment with homemade explosives, which were defused by a bomb squad a day after the shooting. Hours after the shooting, Jones announced to his audience that there was a "100 percent chance" the incident was a "false flag." Jones claims that Homes was an agent for the government. Jones stated, "He was totally set up, on government payroll, said he was drugged, told people in the jail - that was even in the local paper. Then they came out and said it was never said. He's a patsy. He was set up. He was drugged outside." Jones claimed the government staged the Aurora shooting in an effort to pass stronger gun laws. Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting conspiracy theories The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting occurred on December 14, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut, when 20-year-old Adam Lanza fatally shot 20 children between 6 and 7 years old, as well as six adult staff members. Prior to driving to the school, he shot and killed his mother at their Newtown home. As first responders arrived at the scene, Lanza committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. This was the deadliest mass shooting at either a high school or grade school in US history and the third-deadliest mass shooting by a single person in US history. The shooting prompted renewed debate about gun control in the United States, including proposals for making the background check system universal, and for new federal and state gun legislation banning the sale and manufacture of certain types of semi-automatic firearms and magazines with more than 10 rounds of ammunition. A November 2013 report issued by the Connecticut state attorney's office concluded that Lanza acted alone and planned his actions, but no evidence collected provided any indication as to why he did so, or why he targeted the school. In September 2014, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who runs the website Infowars, which had previously claimed that the murders were a false-flag attack perpetrated by the government, made a new conspiracy claim - that "no one died" at Sandy Hook Elementary School because the Uniform Crime Reports showed no murders in Newtown for 2012, and that the victims were "child actors." This claim is false and misrepresents the FBI report. In reality, because the Connecticut State Police was the lead investigator after the attack, the Sandy Hook victims were included in Connecticut's statewide records - under "State Police Misc." - rather than under the Newtown statistics. In November 2016, Erica L. Lafferty, daughter of Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung, the school principal who was shot and killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School, wrote open letters to then-President-elect Donald Trump - published in Medium and USA Today - calling upon him to denounce Sandy Hook denier Alex Jones, after Trump had appeared on Jones' Infowars during his presidential campaign and lavished praise on its presenter, saying that the conspiracy theorist had an "amazing" reputation and pledging not to let him down. Lafferty called upon Trump to immediately disassociate himself with Jones, writing, "On Alex Jones, this is a man who for nearly four years now has put great effort into making not only my family and not only the 25 other victims' families but the entire town of Newtown miserable, and to degrade and disregard the hurt, anguish, and pain that we have to live with every day by claiming that it was a conspiracy theory and a hoax." On February 20, 2017, the Newtown School Board wrote to President Trump, "We are asking you to intervene to try to stop Jones and other hoaxers like him. We are asking you to acknowledge the tragedy from 12/14/12 and to denounce anyone spreading lies and conspiracy theories about the tragedy on that December morning... Jones repeatedly tells his listeners and viewers that he has your ears and your respect. He brags about how you called him after your victory in November. He continues to hurt the memories of those lost, the ability of those left behind to heal." The Newtown School Board specifically urged Trump to recognize the murders of 26 people at Sandy Hook and to "remove your support from anyone who continues to insist that the tragedy was staged or not real." The board chairman, Keith Alexander, stated, "We want facts to matter. That's the essential point." Eric Paradis, a board member whose daughter was a pupil at the school and survived the shooting, said "I really do think he can help us put a stop to it, because he does have a unique position with these hoaxers. If he can help us out then that's fantastic and a Democrat me would be very grateful if he could." Trump did not respond to the letter. Boston Marathon bombing conspiracy theories On April 15, 2013, two homemade bombs detonated 12 seconds and 210 yards apart at 2:49 p.m., near the finish line of the annual Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring several hundred others, including 16 who lost limbs. On April 18, the FBI released images of two suspects, who were almost immediately identified as Chechen-American brothers Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev. The brothers killed an MIT policeman, kidnapped a man in his car, and had a shootout with the police in nearby Watertown, during which two officers were severely injured, one of whom died a year later. Tamerlan Tsarnaev was shot several times, and his brother ran him over while escaping in the stolen car; Tamerlan died soon after. An unprecedented manhunt for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev ensued on April 19, with thousands of law enforcement officers searching a 20-block area of Watertown; residents of Watertown and surrounding communities were asked to stay indoors, and the transportation system and most businesses and public places closed. Around 6:00 p.m., a Watertown resident discovered Dzhokhar hiding in a boat in his backyard. He was shot by police while still in the boat and then arrested. During questioning, Dzhokhar alleged that he and his brother were motivated by extremist Islamist beliefs and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, that they were self-radicalized and unconnected to any outside terrorist groups, and that he was following his brother's lead. He said they learned to build explosive devices from an online magazine of the al-Qaeda affiliate in Yemen. He also said they had intended to travel to New York City to bomb Times Square. On April 8, 2015, he was convicted of 30 charges, including use of a weapon of mass destruction and malicious destruction of property resulting in death. The following month he was sentenced to death. Hours after the bombing, Alex Jones suggested on Twitter that the Boston Marathon bombing had been a false-flag attack. On April 18, Infowars published an article offering "proof" that the Boston Marathon bombing had indeed been a false-flag attack and that a "cover-up" was underway. The article read, "Unlike Oklahoma City, the FBI cannot confiscate all of the surveillance, cell phone, and thousands of cameras that were at the finish line..." The article stated that 4Chan users had posted photos showing Navy SEALs and private security personnel carrying black backpacks, similar to those shown in FBI photos. Infowars also suggested that Barack Obama was hiding a Saudi link to the bombing. On April 26, Jones stated, "This operation is a false flag. It is a staged event. These guys are definitely patsies that were set up and they're manipulating our tribalism that, 'Hey, the guys from the other tribe bombed us but we got them.' When the truth is they were young men recruited by globalist intelligence agencies and set up horribly. And they could do it to any of us. We're all in grave danger." LGBT conspiracy theories In 2010, Alex Jones claimed that the government has been trying to "encourage homosexuality with chemicals so that people don't have children." Jones has also criticized gay people as being harmful to society in general. For instance, he blamed the LGBT community for a terrorist attack on a nightclub in Orlando, Florida in 2016. He stated, "I charge the left and I charge Obama and I charge the LGBT community in general with endangering America and with the blood of these 50-plus innocent men and women who did not deserve to die, who did not deserve to have bullets fired into them and all the other hundreds of thousands of other liberals and gays and others in the Middle East that have been murdered in the last five years under... the onslaught that our government and CNN has pushed and said is a good thing." Jones warned during a June 2013 program that global elites are going to "take heterosexuals' kids - they're hunting us - and give them to the gay couples. That's what goes on." Jones later warned that gangs of gay men are going to go door to door and "rape you." As the Southern Poverty Law Center noted, during a 2013 exchange, Jones said that people "have the right to do what they want as long as it doesn't hurt others" but that globalists are encouraging same-sex marriage because they "want to encourage the breakdown of the family, because the family is where people owe their allegiance. That's why they want to get rid of God. Not because they're atheists, but because they want the state to be God. And so they are taking the rights of an ancient, unified program of marriage and they are breaking it. So it's a major revolution, and they're destroying the dictionary and the definition. And now they're on television... saying, by the way, now your kids belong to the state." Jones has claimed that President Obama is "obsessed" with transgender rights so he entered into a "completely fake" "arranged marriage" with Michelle Obama. He purported to explain of the Obamas' marriage, "I think it's all an arranged marriage, it's all completely fake and it's this big sick joke because he's obsessed with transgender, just like some weird cult or something. I think Michelle Obama is a man. I really do. I really do. I believe it." Other conspiracy theories Following the 2003 disaster of Columbia, a space shuttle that crashed upon re-entry into Earth's atmosphere, Alex Jones said, "Three weeks ago, on my syndicated radio show, I said that there was a very good chance that the globalists would do something horrible concerning the latest Colombia mission. Understand, the psychological warfare technicians do not even need to publicly blame Iraq for the Columbia disaster. It will serve as a distraction in the global press during the final weeks of war preparation..." In 2010, Alex Jones released the film Police State 4: The Rise of FEMA. Infowars' description for the film states that "Jones conclusively proves the existence of a secret network of FEMA camps, now being expanded nationwide. The military industrial complex is transforming... United States into a giant prison camp. A cashless society control grid, constructed in the name of fighting terrorism, was actually built to enslave the American people. Body scanners, sound cannons, citizen spies, staged terror and cameras on every street corner - it's only the beginning..." In reality, no such FEMA camps exist. Jones has repeatedly pushed claims about chemtrails, the conspiracy theory that government airplanes are spraying chemicals into the air for nefarious purposes. During a November 2011 segment on his program, Jones claimed that there's a "total global government program that's hiding in plain view," in which the government sprays chemicals into the air. Jones explained that they're "praying this every day and "it's hurting us." He added that the final result for the government is "genocide and population reduction." Jones has said that President Obama's birth certificate is "fake. Of course it's fake." He has released numerous videos through his YouTube channel claiming that President Obama's birth certificate is fraudulent. The videos' headlines including, "PROOF!!! Obama Birth Certificate Fraud," "Obama's Birth Certificate Proven Fraudulent," and "Obama Bombshell: New Birth Certificate a Forgery." Alex Jones has claimed that the government possesses a weather machine that can create floods and tornadoes. He said in 2013 that "of course there's weather weapon stuff going on - we had floods in Texas like 15 years ago, killed 30-something people in one night. Turned out it was the Air Force." He added that while there are some "natural tornadoes," the government "can create and steer groups of tornadoes." In June 2014, Jerad Miller and Amanda Miller ambushed and killed three people, including two police officers, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Jones claimed that the shooting was "absolutely staged" and said, "There is so much proof of this being staged yesterday, when I first read about it, and this morning, that my mind exploded with hundreds of data points, and quite frankly it's conclusive." Jones later suggested Senator Harry Reid and the Obama administration were responsible for perpetrating the shooting. Following Justice Antonin Scalia's death in February 2016, Jones said that "my gut tells me they killed him and all the intellectual evidence lays it out." He suggested that Obama murdered Scalia so he could push gun control legislation. Jones reacted to Beyonce's music video Lemonade by claiming that it's "high-level" "CIA propaganda because that's their domestic job." Jones claimed that Beyonce has been "funded by" the government to "play us all off against each other" to create a police state. Jones claimed that he "was told by people around" Clinton that "she's demon-possessed," and people with information on the matter have told him "Obama and Hillary both smell like sulfur." On April 5, 2017, Infowars published a report claiming that the White Helmets, which the article claims is an al-Qaeda-affiliated group "funded by George Soros and the British government," have "reportedly staged... a chemical weapon attack on civilians Syria... to lay blame on the Syrian government."